Morrissey was a teenage athlete

Although his schooldays were deeply unhappy, the teenage Morrissey found himself an unlikely sportsman. "By accident I am enlisted to represent the school in track events for the 100 metres and the 400 metres for which, unthinkably, I receive schoolboy medals." And so begins a period in which "I am obliged to feel honoured and to dream of the 14-second dash, or the one-minute 400."

Morrissey made his first TV appearance in a period drama

Stumbling accidentally on to the Coronation Street set as a teenager, Morrissey found himself accosted by a woman bearing a bundle of scripts. On learning that he can, indeed, handle a bicycle well she issues an instruction: "We need a boy for Saturday. It's a 7am start, no dialogue." And so Morrissey makes a brief appearance – "even if you don't blink at all you will miss me" – in The Stars Look Down, set in "the frozen north of 1913". He is but a spot on the horizon – "a punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate".

Morrissey and the soaps were made for each other

Young and hardly gainfully employed, Morrissey wrote to Granada TV, suggesting he be employed as a writer on Corrie. "I am invited to submit a script, and I whip off a word-slinger's delight wherein young take on old as a jukebox is tested in the Rovers' Return." Sadly, he is told his talents lie elsewhere. Many years later, however, the soaps come for him, when he is offered roles on Emmerdale and EastEnders, as Dot Cotton's "so far unmentioned" son. "I would arrive unexpectedly in Albert Square and cause births, deaths and factory fires every time I opened my mouth". As Morrissey observes: "The most fascinating aspect of both offers is that somebody somewhere thought it a good idea." And that's without even considering the startling fact he was offered a cameo on Friends during a visit to filming of the sitcom.

For all his anger at Mike Joyce, Morrissey praises the Smiths' rhythm section

Though the lawsuit brought by Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke forever soured Morrissey's relationship with his former bandmates, he is effusive about their talents as the Smiths honed their craft. "The Smiths' sound rockets with meteroic progression: bomb-burst drumming, explosive chords, combative basslines, and over it all I am as free as a hawk to paint the canvas as I wish. It is a gift from Jesus."

Sandie Shaw may have been one Morrissey's idols, but that changed

Morrissey was delighted when Sandie Shaw agreed to sing Hand in Glove, less delighted with subsequent events. "Ugh," was his reaction when she told him: "Twenty-seven in the charts might be great for you, but it's not good enough for me." And her failure to treat the band "to dinner, or even a bottle of stale ale" is regarded as poor recompense for taking 40% of the cut from her recording of the Smiths' debut single.

Nick Kent asked to join the Smiths

After Johnny Marr left the band, the remaining three considered recruiting another guitarist. And one who asked to be considered was the veteran rock writer. "I am not a good self-salesman," he wrote to Morrissey, "but I can confidently boast an encyclopaedic knowledge of the chord structures, dynamics etc of Johnny's contributions to date … Being musically associated with your very good self would signify the very apex of my crusade for immortality."

After the release of Margaret on the Guillotine, Morrissey was questioned by the police

Special Branch summoned Morrissey in the wake of his 1988 album Viva Hate, featuring Margaret on the Guillotine, "so that they might gauge whether or not I pose a security threat to Margaret Thatcher". The meeting is civil, the singer's autograph is given, and after an hour he is sent away and the matter is ended.

The Krays were persecuted

Morrissey believes the East End gangster bosses were targeted by the authorities for being "working class and far too formidable". Their sin was not running a gangland empire, but that "their empire promised no financial gain for the government". They were, he states, "unfairly locked away for the rest of their lives".

He was the victim of a kidnap attempt

Morrissey believes Mexican kidnappers targeted him after a show in Tijuana in September 2007, when his driver veers from the highway down a dark road – 20 minutes after having promised they were four minutes from the US border. He and his security guard, fortunately, are able to leave the car, which leaves them in the middle of nowhere.